SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

I stayed with her until she drifted off.

Do I have the energy for this? The stamina, the reserves to deal with a six-year-old and an addicted daughter who’s always been trouble? I didn’t know. The only thing I was sure of is that this was going in the right direction.

I watched her sleep for a few minutes and then went to Hayes. He was in bed wearing his IncrediBlaster costume.

“You going to sleep in that?”

He nodded, dark eyes defying me to tell him ‘no.’ I sat on the bed. “What’d you think of your party?”

Our boy of few words struggled to find the right ones. Finally he said, “The best.” He squeezed me around the middle. “Ever.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Putting him to bed reminded me of our time in the city. “I guess I should check to see if your chip’s full.” I sighed. As I reached behind his ear, he pulled away. “What’s wrong?” I pressed on his implant, but didn’t feel the pop of the chip sliding out. “Turn around.”

He did.

The implant was empty.

I was confused . I left the chip out? No. The day we left the city, I put the real one back in after we recorded the camping scene on the phony chip.

“I took it out.”

“Hayes. When? Before your party?”

He nodded.

“But…I wanted to make you a happy memory and now…Why did you do that?”

He stuck his jaw out. “I knew it was going to be special. So, I wanted to keep it…private. Just for me. Is that okay?”

My breath caught in my throat. All I could do was nod.

“Don’t worry, Gama, I won’t ever forget it.”

He lay back, snuggling under the quilt.

My body plopped down on the bed. I reached out over him, feeling soft patchwork and his warm body, my mind holding on hard to this moment.

AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

My caretakers in The Freevolution Habitat played Clue at night. I—Umberto, born an ordinary donkey—recovered from my surgeries and grew to self-awareness hearing the antics of Miss Scarlett and Professor Plum, ropes and conservatories, secret passageways and always, murder.

Sarelle—uplifted, sublime, blood bay horse and ex-love-of-my-life—came into my bar during the last set of the night. I lost all air. My mouth went dry, the reed stuck to my lip and Betsy, my clarinet, burbled inharmoniously for a moment or two.

I hadn’t seen her for more than a decade. After she left me, I moved here to Tijuana and bought the bar. At least I had music, and, whether metaphor or cliché, border towns the world over are havens for our kind.

She sat at a front center table while I recovered and launched into Sidney Bechet’s blissful Blue Horizon . Her infinite eyes gleamed as she listened.

"I want babies," Sarelle had told me during the messy break-up, noting some factoid she’d just learned about horses and donkeys being unable to breed. That, of course, was a manshit excuse because uplifted animals are usually sterile.

And then, she went with Horace, an up-donk like me.

The three of us had come up together at the Hab and were friends in San Francisco when newly aware, when I—thrilled beyond all reason with the delicately capable fingers attached to new hands at the end of new arms—had learned to play.

I finished the set, but my pride wouldn’t let me go to her. I sat down at the end of the bar near Al: bartender, buddy, barrister, biggest fan. I downed three shots in short order.

"Ease up," he said.

"I didn’t ask to be uplifted."

His arm halted in mid-air. His scotch swayed on the rocks.

"No-one asks to be born, you ass."

Al is human. And a lawyer. I liked him anyway.

The only come-back I could think of was, "You didn’t have to be born twice, so shut the hell up."

"When have I ever shut up? So that’s Sarelle?" He regarded her with undisguised appreciation.

"She’s a horse, Al."

"Was. Was a horse. They did a nice job on her."

"You make her sound like a damned refurbished car."

"Umberto?"

Her voice entered my body, not through my ears, but my sternum. It swirled around my heart for a few seconds and then squeezed.

I stood and turned, feeling the tequila, swaying like Al’s scotch.

"I need your help," she said.

"Hmm. Should’ve stopped that sentence before the er help ."

"Be serious. I’m in danger."

"And I’m drunk. You should have shown up earlier. Ten years ago would have been good." I saw white in her eyes as her head reared back. "Who’s gonna hurt you ?" I asked, melting at the sight of her distress.

"He’s hurt me for years. I’m trying to get away."

That sobered me up. Putting my hand around her withers, I guided her to my office, and poured her a brandy. We sat on the couch.

"Horace?" I asked.

She knocked back half her drink and nodded, eyes down.

Horace . Already, this didn’t add up. I’d run into him a month or so ago.

Sitting in shade of a cottonwood in the square, I heard my name, but couldn’t see who was yelling it. My natural donkey eyes being none too keen, I’d gotten vision enhancements years ago. I adjusted the eyedial to zoom, resolved the blurriness, and saw Horace loping across the green—mostly avoiding the intervening toddlers and locked-in-place lovers.

A bay dun with a light cream pangare on his chest, I had to admit he was elegant for a donk—especially compared to my blotchy hide.

"What brings you here?" I asked.

"The scene."

He couldn’t stand still, like he was on something. "What scene?"

" The Scene is what we’re calling it. Surprised you didn’t have the idea first."

I flicked lint off my pin-striped trousers. "Haven’t had an idea in twelve years. Tell me." I retrieved Betsy’s case from the bench at the last second before he could sit on her.

"It’ll be like an old-time vaudeville show with all uplift acts."

My belly roiled.

He continued. "I’ve done pretty well financially, so I’m just trying to give back. To our community, you know."

"To make spectacles of your fellow beings?"

"Nah, that’s not the spin. Not a freak show. A Variety Revue. We show what we can do."

"Knock yourself out."

"You have to be part of this. You’re famous here."

I can’t deny it; that self-serving bit of flattery spread through me like warm syrup. But like anything sweet, it didn’t last.

I got up. "Break a leg."

Horace put a hand on my arm.

"No, seriously," I said, extracting it from him, "break a leg."

Now Sarelle sat on my worn, green velvet couch, tilting toward me a bit, but only because of the sprung coils under the cushion. Her long silken legs—red-brown with delicate black fetlock wreaths and still so shapely they took my breath away—stretched out in my direction.

"Horace has always been abusive," she said. "I’m never good enough. He’s ruined my self-confidence. He controls my every move. Though…" she paused and downed the dregs of her brandy, "he only hits me when he’s…under the influence."

"Sarelle, donks—We aren’t violent. Sure, stubborn and crabby. Depressive, maybe. We lose our temper and lash out, but to be intentionally and repeatedly cruel? It’s not our way."

"No one believes me. It’s why I never came to you before." She closed her eyes and pressed on them.

"It’s a shock. And, so needless. You could have stayed with me, but instead, you went with someone who’s hurt you? I don’t know why you’ve come to me now or what I’m supposed to do."

She looked straight at me, her black eyes lifeless, dull. "I can’t…say it."